A-League bosses Nick Garcia and Stephen Conroy answer 12 burning questions facing domestic football

Club funding has been slashed, TV deals have backfired and the board room has been reshuffled. How did football in Australia get here and what’s still to come?

It is no secret the APL is struggling – it has slashed funding to clubs from $2 million to $530,000 – but there are plenty of other issues behind the scenes.

They include how clubs will survive, changes to the salary cap, full-time contracts for the women’s league, new board members and the APL’s financial situation.

A-Leagues commissioner Nick Garcia and independent chair Stephen Conroy fronted the media on Wednesday following the board’s decision to drastically cut clubs’ share of the central distribution fund.

Here is what the APL bosses had to say on 12 of the A-Leagues’ biggest issues.

Will clubs survive without the extra $1.5 million?

Conroy said representatives from every club had been contacted following the board’s decision to slash funding and none had raised the issue of collapsing.

“While clubs are hurting by the size of this reduction, no one gave any indication of that level of problem in the meeting at all,” Conroy said.

“They weren’t dancing a jig but no one said, ‘Right, that’s it, we are shutting the doors’.”

Garcia said clubs would not be left to deal with the fall out on their own.

“We’re going to sit down and have one-to-one meetings with A-Leagues clubs and management to really understand what this means to them and identify ways that we can support them centrally throughout because we know it is challenging,” Garcia said.

Will it have an impact on the salary cap?

The salary cap is locked in at a minimum of $2.25 million for men’s teams.

Conroy and Garcia were positive the reduction in funds wouldn’t affect that figure, which is set by the CPA.

Conroy said clubs were made aware several months ago that cuts were being made.

“We wanted to give them a heads up that bad news was coming,” Conroy said.

Clubs and players understood that if they were up for a new contract the “market is tighter than it was”.

However, every A-Leagues club is spending above the minimum salary cap.

“Right now we are between commercial cycles,’’ Garcia said.

“The opportunity is to capitalise on the next one but critically we have to align the salary cap with distributions, ultimately.

“What we are driving towards is a sustainable league and part of that is raising distributions and managing costs accordingly.”

A-Leagues commissioner Nick Garcia. Picture: Jason McCawley/Getty Images

How did we end up here?

While still unwilling to reveal details of the APL’s financial state, Conroy said his predecessors were “overly ambitious” and “ran too fast”.

Launching during Covid didn’t help and nor did having to prop up Perth Glory.

“Launching into Covid was not the moment to go for a big, bold, ambitious strategy,” Conroy said.

“There was a string of optimistic projects that were embarked on that didn’t pay off.”

Conroy said those decisions meant the APL had to axe half its workforce this year and shut down the underperforming digital platform KeepUp.

“The decisions we took over the last six to nine months have been to focus on a football strategy,’’ Conroy said.

“We have had to make some very tough decisions. Some really good people who didn’t deserve it, we had to let go.

“But these are the circumstances we found ourselves in.

“We’re reviewing every single cost inside the business to make savings so that we can reduce the impact ultimately on the distributions but the distributions were the single largest cost.

“And they were based on a set of numbers in the TV deal. The numbers, as has been widely reported, reduced and therefore a gap opened up.

“We have to do everything we can to ensure that we have a sustainable APL.

“We’re now aiming to break even for the coming financial year and that’s a massive turnaround.”

Newly appointed independent chair of the APL Stephen Conroy. Photo: Supplied

Why won’t the APL reveal its financial situation?

Conroy said anything to do with the APL’s financial situation were “board matters”.

“We have been transparent about the need for massive reductions without wanting to go into each individual item,” Conroy said.

“But we’ve made large losses that weren’t sustainable and we’ve been forced to make some decisions that have had an impact on people and the clubs.”

Is it all doom and gloom?

Conroy and Garcia said the A-Leagues season was a success, despite all the issues.

They spoke about audience numbers rising, increased crowd attendances and improved usage of the A-Leagues’ digital app.

“We’ve had three years of growth since the APL took over after seven years of consecutive decline,” Conroy said. It’s easy to forget that.

“We lived through Covid, we saw all those impacts, but three years of growth gives us a bit of a spring in our step as we move into negotiations over the next six to nine months with our broadcast partners.”

Conroy said the background noise hadn’t detracted from the quality of the games.

“There are plenty of positives,” he said.

A-League Women’s players are pushing for full-time contracts. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Will the women’s game keep growing?

Results from the PFA survey released this week showed the women’s A-League players wanted full-time contracts by the 2026-27 season.

Funding cuts don’t bode well for that to happen.

Garcia and Conroy said the women’s game was an important part of the business and they planned to keep it growing.

However, there is no timeline on when full-time contracts will be introduced.

Garcia said the next pre-season would be used to build the plan for a “lot of these things”.

“We are having some different conversations around ways we can drive it but we can’t really get into them right now,” Garcia said.

“That will very much be part of the road map we’re defining when they come in.”

Garcia predicted the women’s game would continue to grow next season.

“We saw a good shot in the arm off the women’s World Cup,” Garcia said.

“We’ve maintained steady growth throughout the season. There was a big spike in the beginning and it has grown steadily.

“What we have also noticed is that the crossover between the A-League women’s and the A-League men’s teams in the same club is actually quite small.

“So what we are doing is building its own audience, which is great because these are people who have never watched football before and they are coming to games and creating a great atmosphere.

“We are still going to be pushing the game but that growth is going to have to be organic.”

What is the SilverLake situation?

It has been reported the $140 million cash injection from private equity group SilverLake has been spent by the APL in less than three years, which Conroy and Garcia did not dispute.

When pressed on the circumstances of the $140 million, Conroy wouldn’t say if it was a loan or a grant.

“That is a commercial relationship between ourselves and SilverLake and they are on the board,” Conroy said.

“They’ve been working very closely with us in terms of helping right size the business. They’ve been leaning in rather than being critical.

“They’ve been on the board the whole way and they have been working strongly behind the scenes with us on all of the tough decisions that we’ve had to make.”

Former A-Leagues CEO Danny Townsend. Picture: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

Will there be a board shuffle?

The majority of the APL’s original leadership and executive committee, who were behind the split from Football Australia, are no longer in the picture.

Former CEO Danny Townsend left in October last year and board members continued to follow him off the sinking ship.

Paul Lederer departed in December last year, while Scott Barlow was the latest to depart when he resigned last month.

Melbourne City vice-chairman Simon Pearce remains.

With board elections in September, Conroy said he expected more to depart and there to be an influx of new faces around the table.

“We’ve all already seen a couple of directors stand down,” Conroy said. “It won’t surprise me if a couple more stand down.

“As to individuals you want to name ... the board is elected by the club owners, unit holders as they’re called.

“But I think you’ll see a significantly different board after the elections, which are in September.”

The business is also yet to find a new CEO. Garcia and James Rushton are sharing the leadership duties.

Are TV deal negotiations under way?

The deal with Network 10/Paramount is locked in until the end of the 2025-26 season and Conroy said negotiations would start in the next six to nine months.

Despite the APL not hitting the KPI benchmarks, viewership numbers are up and the league has reportedly experienced growth.

Conroy said that would give the APL more leverage to strike a new deal.

Garcia said the APL was responsible for covering production costs under the current deal.

“We want to control our products,” Garcia said.

“Clearly that market has changed in the last few years and it’s got a lot more expensive and we had the problem of Global Advance going bust last season.

“One of the parts is how do we get the production as cheap as possible without compromising the product, which is really important.

“We are working with Ten, who are being very collaborative on ways to achieve that.”

The APL is in the middle of an expression of interest process with production companies.

There could be more focus on player development in the A-League from next season. Picture: Michael Klein

Is anything new planned for the upcoming season?

Garcia and Conroy hinted at some big changes but were tight-lipped about them.

Conroy suggested one avenue could be putting more focus on the A-Leagues as development competitions and restricting how many under-23 players had to be contracted to clubs.

It was also hinted there could be a change regarding what channel or how many A-Leagues matches were on free to air.

Will the APL remerge with Football Australia?

There has been talk that clubs are pushing for Football Australia to retake control of the league.

Conroy said that was not something APL was pursuing.

He said both organisations had held talks recently about ways to better share services to reduce costs.

“In terms of the level of potential co-operation with the FA, that’s probably the brightest spot in terms of the discussions that we’ve been having,” Conroy said.

“They want the A-League to be successful because they understand that a strong A-League means a strong pipeline for the Matildas and the Socceroos.

“As soon as we can reunite the pyramid in a raft of really constructive ways, the better, and that’s what both boards are working on at the moment.”

Is promotion and relegation on the cards?

Conroy didn’t rule out the A-Leagues having a promotion and relegation link with a second-tier competition.

He said there had been discussions “but we’re not that far advanced”.

Conroy said far more “practical things” had to be sorted first and it was “not at the top of the list”.

Originally published as A-League bosses Nick Garcia and Stephen Conroy answer 12 burning questions facing domestic football